Obama: Mandela "courageous and profoundly good"

WASHINGTON: America´s first black president Barack Obama Thursday mourned Nelson Mandela as a "profoundly good" man who "took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice."

Obama -- who met the former South African president briefly only once in 2005, but was inspired to enter politics by the anti-apartheid hero´s example -- paid a somber heartfelt tribute within 45 minutes of Mandela´s death being announced.

"We will not likely see the like of Nelson Mandela again," Obama said in a televised statement, hailing his political hero for his "fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others."

Obama said Mandela, in his journey from a "prisoner to a president," transformed South Africa and "moved all of us."

"He achieved more than could be expected of any man." "Today he´s gone home and we´ve lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth. "He no longer belongs to us; he belongs to the ages." (AFP)